[webdev] Web Design Update: July 19, 2012

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 10, Issue 04, July 19, 2012.

An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web
design and development.

++ISSUE 04 CONTENTS.

SECTION ONE: New references.
What's new at the Web Design Reference site?
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/
New links in these categories:

01: ACCESSIBILITY.
02: BOOKS.
03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: NAVIGATION.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
09: USABILITY.

SECTION TWO:
10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Best Practices by Use
By Donald Evans.
Topics include images, forms, links, drag and drop, video and
multimedia, navigation, show and hide, tables, and tser messaging.
http://websiteaccessibility.donaldevans.com/best-practices-by-use/

Developer Tools to Help Check Web Accessibility
By Emily Coward.
"Three tips for using the web developer toolbar to help check for
accessibility issues on your website..."
http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2012/developer-tools-to-help-check-web-accessibility/


+02: BOOKS.

Kadlec, Tim. Implementing Responsive Design, New Riders Press. 2012.
Mills, Chris. Practical CSS3: Develop and Design, Peachpit Press. 2012.


+03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Vendor Prefixes
By Openweb.
"Vendor prefixes are a complex topic with wide-ranging consequences
both short- and long-term that should not be underestimated. Nicolas
Hoffmann offers some explanations and a perspective view on this
difficult subject..."
http://openweb.eu.org/articles/vendor-prefixes

CSS Floats
By Thierry Koblentz.
"This property specifies whether a box should float to the left,
right, or not at all..."
http://www.css-101.org/float/index.php

CSS Selector Performance - Front-End Myths
By Niels Matthijs.
"No matter where you look, no matter what sources you follow, if you
read up on front-end development you cannot escape the reign of
performance. As many studies suggest, websites need to be fast to
perform well..."
http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/css-selector-performance-myth


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

The Most Important Usability Activity
By Jakob Nielsen.
"What's worth the most - field studies or user tests? Depends on your
company's usability maturity, but user testing is the safe bet if you
can do only one thing."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/field-study-vs-user-test.html


+05: EVENTS.

The eduStyle Higher-ed Web Awards
July 30 - August 1, 2012.
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
http://www.edustyle.net/awards/2012/nominees.php

Responsive Web Design Summit 2012
August 28, 2012.
Online
http://environmentsforhumans.com/2012/responsive-web-design-summit/

Refresh LX
September 20-21 2012
Lisbon, Portugal
http://refresh-lx.com/

Breaking Development Conference
September 24-26, 2012.
Dallas, Texas, U.S.A.
http://bdconf.com/2012/dallas

Ready to Inspire
December 9-12, 2012.
Leiden, The Netherlands
http://2012.inspireconf.com/


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Ten Years Ago: Web Design Update Newsletter Began
In July 2002 the first issue of this newsletter was published. Authors
included Meryl K. Evans, Andrew Kirkpatrick, Christopher Schmitt,
Henrik Olsen, Peter Merholz, Peter Morville, Donald Norman, and John
S. Rhodes.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/itsshelp/news/2012/07/ten-years-ago-web-design-update-newsletter-began.html
Archives: (Volume 4, Issue 06, August 4, 2005 to date.)
http://lists.d.umn.edu/pipermail/webdev/
First 162 Issues: (Volume 1, Issue 01, July 2002, through Volume 4,
Issue 05, July 2005) and subsequent issues are available as text
files.
http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/newsletter/


+07: NAVIGATION.

Why Do We Need Navigation At All?
By Tom Johnson.
"...Regardless of how you organize the content, the larger point is
this: giving users a table of contents does much more than simply
provide users with a means of navigating the content. The table of
contents expresses the hierarchical relationships of your content, and
by so doing gives users a sense of your content's overall story and
structure. Even if users can't find the answer to their question by
navigating the table of contents, they can find other meaning in
browsing and perusing the structure of your content..."
http://idratherbewriting.com/2012/07/12/why-do-we-need-navigation-at-all/

Why You Should Not Use ARIA Role=Tab On Header Navigation Tabs That
Look Like Tabs But Aren't Actually Tabs
By Bryan Garaventa.
"This is another commonly misunderstood concept that I would like to
explain a bit..."
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Why-you-should-not-use-4512178.S.134719297


+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Role Attribute 1.0
W3C Candidate Recommendation 12 July 2012
"An attribute to support the role classification of elements"
http://www.w3.org/TR/role-attribute/

It's OK to Use Tables
By Adrian Roselli.
"...With all the push for hand-crafted HTML and CSS and the strong
desire to show off what developers can do using HTML5 and assorted
tricks, take a look at any grids you find yourself marking up. If you
find you have columns of data, rows of data, headings for rows or
columns, or are using any CSS table display properties, then you just
might need to use a table instead."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2012/07/its-ok-to-use-tables.html


+09: USABILITY.

Performance Implications of Responsive Design
By Guy Podjarny.
"...Responsive Web Design is a powerful and forward thinking
technique, but it also carries with it significant performance
implications. Make sure you understand these challenges and design to
avoid them, so that users won't abandon your website before they got
to experience your amazing visuals and content."
http://www.guypo.com/mobile/performance-implications-of-responsive-design-book-contribution/

Great Works of Fiction Presents: The Mobile Context
By Stephen Hay.
"...Users are ultimately the experts in deciding what they want to do
on your site. Make it possible, make it easy, then get out of the way
and let them fill in the blanks. They'll attribute the good experience
to you."
http://www.the-haystack.com/2012/07/09/great-works-of-fiction-presents-the-mobile-context/

Mobile > Local
By Karen McGrane.
"Just because someone is doing a search from a mobile device doesn't
make it a local search. And just because someone is looking for local
content doesn't imply they're using a mobile device. Just because many
local searches are from mobile devices does not imply that most mobile
searches are for local information..."
http://karenmcgrane.com/2012/07/10/mobile-local/

We'll Tell You What You Really Want - Mobile Context, Top Tasks, and
Organization-Centric Thinking
By Sara Wachter-Boettcher.
"...When your organization is truly customer focused, right down to
its core, then the prospect of preparing your content to go wherever
your users are stops seeming outlandish and starts seeming like the
only sensible course of action. Mobile is a tremendous shift, but it's
just the beginning. Devices are going to get wackier. Users'
expectations about shifting and saving and sharing content are going
to get greater. As they do, this mindset-one where we, the benevolent
organization, tells customers what they, the individual, should
want-will get more and more frustrating for users, and damaging to
businesses."
http://sarawb.com/2012/07/11/mobile-context-top-tasks/

Mobile Design Pattern Gallery
By Theresa Neil.
http://mobiledesignpatterngallery.com/mobile-patterns.php

The Elements Of The Mobile User Experience
By Lyndon Cerejo.
"Mobile users and mobile usage are growing. With more users doing more
on mobile, the spotlight is on how to improve the individual elements
that together create the mobile user experience..."
http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/12/elements-mobile-user-experience/

Checkout Usability: Don't Use "Apply" Buttons (72% Get it Wrong)
By Jamie Appleseed.
"This is the first in a series of 8 articles on checkout usability
that combine findings from our checkout usability research from 2011,
and our 2012 benchmark of the 100 largest e-commerce sites (database
coming soon)."
http://baymard.com/blog/checkout-usability-apply-buttons


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

Accessibility Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html

Association Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html

Book Listings.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html

Cascading Style Sheets Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html

Color Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html

Dreamweaver Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/dreamweaver.html

Evaluation & Testing Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html

Event Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html

Flash Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/flash.html

Information Architecture Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html

JavaScript Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html

Miscellaneous Web Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html

Navigation Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html

PHP Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html

Sites & Blogs Listing.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html

Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html

Tool Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html

Typography Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html

Usability Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html

XML Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/xml.html

[Section two ends.]


++END NOTES.


+ SUBSCRIPTION INFO.

WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how
to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit:
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webdev_listserv.html
The Web Design Reference Site also has a RSS 2.0 feed for site updates.


+ TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN).

As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to
the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines.  Please let me
know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier.
For TEN guideline information please visit:
http://www.headstar.com/ten


+ SIGN OFF.

Until next time,

Laura L. Carlson
Information Technology Systems and Services
University of Minnesota Duluth
Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009
mailto:lcarlson at d.umn.edu


[Issue ends.]